Virgin Voyages Begins Construction of First Cruise Ship

When Sir Richard Branson declared "Make ship happen!" yesterday at an event in Genoa, Italy, it wasn't a slip of the tongue by the famously playful head of Virgin Group. These three words are the current slogan for the billionaire's newest company: Virgin Voyages. Originally announced in 2015, all the work for the burgeoning cruise line has been on paper up until now, or, more specifically, until last night when a cutting machine sliced into a steel sheet to mark the official start of shipbuilding. Come 2020, Virgin's first vessel will set sail from Miami on seven-day Caribbean cruises with room for 2,800 guests and 1,150 crew.

Virgin Voyages has a total of three ships on order, though Tom McAlpin, the line's president and CEO, is keeping options open, teasing the crowd with a "who knows?" and venturing that there may be many more in the future. The first, temporarily named Virgin I, will go by the more industrial title of "hull number 6287" as she's built at the Fincantieri shipyard in Genoa. Although they remain extremely tight-lipped on what the ships will look like inside and out, McAlpin did take the opportunity to reveal the "Creative Collective" of designers and architects tasked with fulfilling Branson's vision for the "world's most gorgeous ship." This group of ten "creators of trends, not followers," to quote McAlpin, is led by the likes of Roman and Williams, Concrete Amsterdam, Design Research Studio, and Pearson Lloyd.

The incredible growth of budget airline travel to southern Iceland means tourists now outnumber Icelanders in their own country, and Iceland is tired of everyone visiting only Reykjavik. Rising to the occasion is Akureyri, Iceland's fourth-largest city and the capital of Norðurland eystra, or Northeastern Region. Ships from Royal Caribbean, National Geographic, and even Disney Cruise Line approach Akureyi via Eyjafjörður, the longest fjord in Iceland. Throughout the summer months, the midnight sun illuminates nightlife, festivals, and dips in the thermal waters of the Mývatn Nature Baths. Some cruises even offer an excursion by plane from Akureyi to the small island of Grimsey, the only part of Iceland that crosses into the Arctic Circle.

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After the U.S. raised travel warnings for Turkey at the beginning of 2016, cruise lines with Turkish ports scrambled to cancel and replace stops. Lines like Cunard, Princess, and Holland America (all owned by Carnival Corporation & plc) left Turkey to rediscover Albania, adding stops in Durres (for access to Tirana, the capital) or in Sarande, the country’s Mediterranean riviera resort city. Ancient ruins and castles dot the coves and palm-lined bays, making a spectacular amalgam of the architecture introduced by the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, Angevins, Venetians, French, and Ottomans.

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“We look for places hard to get to via land...parts of the world that would otherwise be very difficult to visit outside of a cruise vacation," says Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, the president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises. With that in mind, Celebrity has turned to Floreana, a smaller island in the far southern reaches of the Galapagos. Despite its size, the island is a major nesting site for sea turtles and home to flamingos and Darwin’s finches, the latter playing an integral part in Charles Darwin’s development of his theory of evolution. Guests visiting the island can snorkel at “Devil’s Crown,” an underwater volcanic cone teeming with sea turtles and sea lions, and dry off for a stop at Post Office Bay, where a 200-year-old tradition of leaving unstamped postcards and picking up those left by others, to hand-deliver to their destinations, continues today.

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The 1995 eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano buried both Montserrat's airport and Plymouth, the capital, and left half the island uninhabitable, making cruises here sparse until 2016. Windstar markets Montserrat as a “modern-day Pompeii,” but Little Bay, where its ships anchor, is rapidly growing in the lush half of the country, where visitors safely observe the destruction via ATV tours and stops at the official observatory. Bit by bit, Montserrat is making it back onto the Caribbean tourism map, and even larger ships that dock on nearby Antigua now offer helicopter sightseeing trips over the island.

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Vancouver Island consistently ranks in our Readers Choice Awards among the best islands in the world, so it’s no surprise the destination is showing up on more cruise itineraries. Vancouver-based travel blogger Trish Friesen of TripStyler.com explains to Traveler that Nanaimo is “both a destination with seaside trails and rugged West Coast beaches,” and has been long-known to locals as the “go-to getaway” on Vancouver Island. Friesen says that, for visitors, Nanaimo functions as an ideal hub for reaching famed nearby locales, like the surfing town of Tofino or the arts community of Chemainus, the latter “dubbed ‘Muraltown’ for its large-scale public art installations.”

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The image of the United Arab Emirates as a desert dotted with glittering, ultra-modern cities is turned on its head with a visit to Sir Bani Yas, the largest natural island in the UAE and home to Arabia’s most extensive wildlife reserve. Cruise ships, including the Celebrity Constellation which home-ports in Abu Dhabi, have only recently added Sir Bani Yas as a destination since the opening of its brand new cruise facilities, including a beach that's safe for swimming and sunbathing, in December 2016. Excursions to see the island’s park preserve population of endangered Arabian oryx, gazelles, antelopes, ostrich, rhea, peacocks, giraffes, hyenas, and cheetahs are the most popular, but the island also boasts more than 30 archaeological sites as well as coastal waters home to dolphins and sea turtles.

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Located in the Torres Strait and north of the northern tip of mainland Australia, Thursday Island emerges alongside growing interest in neighboring Papua New Guinea. Azamara, Viking Ocean, Paul Gauguin, and Silversea have all added Thursday Island to 2018 itineraries, and guests who book are in for a singular history and geography lesson. According to Azamara’s description, “many of the sights and activities to be enjoyed on T.I. are influenced by the Melanesian people—the indigenous population who are not Aborigines, but instead migrated from Melanesia and Polynesia over 2,000 years ago.” Visitors learn of the island’s major industries by pearling, diving, or fishing, and maybe even come away having picked up few words of the main language, Torres Strait Creole.

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Bali may be the first place travelers think of when it comes to cruising Indonesia, but the bustling metropolis of Semarang is proving Central Java is also worthy of a stop. The central city hosts a historic Dutch quarter and Chinese temples, but the most popular excursion is out to Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world and a protected UNESCO site. Covered in volcanic ash for nearly a millennium before being rediscovered in 1814 and finally restored in the 1970s, Borobudur’s 72 stupas and triple tier of terraces inspire awe (and awesome Instagrams). Costa Cruises, Seabourn, Regent Seven Seas, and Holland America are a few of the cruise lines coming here in 2018.

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The names may be unfamiliar, but travelers likely already know some of their work, especially when it comes to Roman and Williams and Design Research Studio. The former is the American design firm behind Ace Hotels, The Freehand boutique hostels, The Standard High Line, and Le Coucou, just to name a few. The latter is headed by Tom Dixon and responsible for Mondrian Hotels, Himitsu restaurants, and some seriously shiny home furnishings. All have been "sworn to secrecy" and threatened with a punishment of "lifetime on land" should they leak any details, but here's what else we do know about Virgin Voyages:

All three ships are projected to cost $2.55 billion, total. Of course, that's before adding in all the champagne that'll be spilled to christen them.

Passengers aren't guests—they're "sailors," and potential sailors are already influencing the design. "We've had tens of thousands of passionate sailors telling us what they want on a Virgin Voyage," says McAlpin. They're still taking suggestions, too, via their official Twitter @VirginVoyages.

This cruise line intends to be the cleanest fleet out there, partnering with clean energy start-up Climeon to "efficiently turn heat waste into electricity, saving stacks of CO2."

Forget country-counting; the itineraries will be planned around "delivering Virgin style" with "deeply social experiences."

They're not playing by the rules. "We have no legacy to deal with," Frank Weber, vice president of operations, tells Condé Nast Traveler. "We are setting our own standard and not taking 'no' for an answer."

The Creative Collective is promising detailed designs later this year. Fingers crossed for a submarine on the side.